Mmm... Steak

No one can ever call me a fussy eater. My taste in food is like my taste in music. There aren't too many things I've turned down. One thing I have not had in ages is steak. It's not because I'm a vegetarian or anything like that. Whenever I go someplace new, I often go for something pretty basic: a hamburger in a less fancy place, steak in someplace a bit nicer. Red meat is the standard for my first impression of a restaurant. Well, my long period of steak deprivation came to a spectacular end with a visit to the Capital Grille in Providence and a date with a sirloin. That, and the most incredible cheesecake, made for a meal far from routine. I hadn't been to the Steak Loft in Mystic in ages, so a few folks from the station decided to get together there and see our morning fill-in co-host Phred singing. Miss L from Jammin 107-7 always gets the steak teriyaki, so I went with that recommendation and was very impressed. A great steak has made for some of my best memories dining out. Maybe because it's a rare occasion - medium rare.

Radio Flashback: My Brief Disco Heyday

It was June 1979. The Ayatollah had just taken over in Iran, the long gas lines were back and my still young radio career had taken me to Springfield, Massachusetts and WMAS 94.7 FM. This was at the height of the disco craze. A new station owner was determined to transform a perennial also-ran into a serious ratings contender. They figured if an all disco station could have killer numbers in New York, why not Greater Springfield? It sounded like fun, so I took the midday slot. Even with the star power of Donna Summer, the Bee Gees and the Village People - who were aired hourly - Springfield was not supporting a 24/7 disco format. The superstars had their share of duds that never crossed into the pop mainstream, so many of the B or C list artists were just plain forgettable. Some of the cuts were over ten minutes. I'd leave the show with a splitting disco headache! When they wanted to move my shift to nights I should have felt flattered, since that was the only time slot with ratings, but a month was enough of that relentless thump, thump, thump. Two songs I did like were Patrick Hernandez's "Born to be Alive" and McFadden & Whitehead's "Ain't No Stoppin' Us Now." Within a year, WMAS-FM wisely jettisoned disco, increased their power and went with a more "mass" appeal format that continues its remarkable success to this day. I did return to WMAS to do fill-ins in 1988. The brief disco era is recreated each Saturday night on WMAS, hosted by a truly nice guy named Brett Provo. He plays the hits and leaves out the filler. One moral of the story: what works in one place may bomb in another. No, I did not wear polyester there. And yes, it's disco week on American Idol. Yay!

I'm All Atwitter!

First it was MySpace, the premier site for online social networking. Then that seemed so yesterday with the rise of Facebook. Now we're being told to "Twitter." Keep up with what everyone's doing in real time in "tweets" of up to 140 characters. Ashton Kutcher challenged and beat CNN in getting a million tweets. Oprah is now on Twitter with 34,000 tweets in her first few hours. You can now follow WBMW on Twitter as well at the bottom of the page on http://www.wbmw.com/. As much as I like to keep up with the latest techno-trends, I really don't know if this Twitter hype is justified. You can already text me, email me, call me on one of four phone numbers and even Facebook me. (Is "Facebook" a verb yet?) How much do I need to learn about the hour by hour activities of everyone I know? Maybe I'm missing the significance of the Twitter Revolution, but I'm already feeling pretty well in touch. Yes, I am also on Twitter, but I keep losing my password!

A Passion for Local Radio

Sag Harbor, on Long Island's East End, can hardly be called the media capital of the world, but WLNG General Manager Emeritus Paul Sidney was definitely one of the giants in the radio business. Sidney, a longtime champion of local radio, passed away on April 1st at age 69. He arrived at WLNG AM 1600 as program director shortly after its inception in 1963. WLNG FM 92.1 came along later, but the FM always maintained that 1963 AM radio sound even after the AM side signed off for good, keeping the FM stereo off and the reverb on, with pumped up audio processing unduplicated on today's radio dial. And those jingles - one for everything! They made their own rules and stuck by them to create a consistency and heritage seldom observed in this changeable business.

Back in 1982, I had the pleasure of visiting WLNG with a radio friend who used to work for Paul. There he was, at the station on a Sunday, with WLNG cranked up in his office. He told longtime air personality Rusty Potz to "put on the Connecticut jingle - we've got somebody here from Connecticut!" - and he turned it up even louder. He was so proud of what WLNG stood for. You never know where you're going to find great people in radio. Paul Sidney's loyal crew at WLNG continues to share fun with legions of listeners, providing a reliable source for local information, serving the community in countless ways, knowing everyone, getting results for advertisers and even making money along the way. WLNG's secret to success? To use Paul's operative word: "Consistency." What's wrong with that?

Crawling to Victory

Dozens of babies were entered into the Soft Rock 106.5 Diaper Derby Saturday, April 4, 2009 at the Mystic Aquarium & Institute for Exploration. A much smaller number made it to the finish line. That is understandable, considering the biggest distraction for these crawling cuties may have been the enthusiastic crowd cheering them on, including yours truly as the flag-waving referee. We think the real winner was the March of Dimes, as we help raise awareness of the cause of babies being born healthy. Thanks to Becky and the staff at Mystic Aquarium & Institute for Exploration, key sponsor The Savings Institute, Dan from the March of Dimes and all the families who turned out to make this event such a success. Several WBMW and Jammin 107-7 staffers (Chuck, Brian and Miss L) really deserve credit for making it work so well this first time out, especially my co-host Rebecca from the Wakeup Club. Rebecca was the emcee and planner for this Diaper Derby, and her real life role as a new mom definitely helped her for this job. She was awesome! Her husband Bryan brought their now famous 8-month-old Liliana (pictured) to the Diaper Derby as an observer - she's not quite crawling yet. This event was a win-win!